Saturday, July 05, 2008

Best Place to Watch Fireworks in Minneapolis

Lake Calhoun in a canoe.

For the couple dozen Minneapolis residents who read this blog you now know my secret.

This year was great! We put in the water at about 7:30 and paddled all around the chain of lakes. (The same route we did last spring.) But in the end we paddled south into Lake Calhoun and watched fireworks.

We saw a bunch of wood ducks around the islands, and a loon on Cedar Lake (I saw a loon on Lake Nokomas last week too, the Twin Cities seem too far south for loons normally - does anyone know better?), and at twilight on our way to Lake Calhoun we passed by the islands again and saw our old friend the Black Capped Night Heron fly from his roost to the bank for breakfast.

When we got to Lake Harriet, it was pitch black with only a sliver of a moon. The water was smooth flat obsidian and at about 10:00 pm fireworks started on all sides of us and were reflected in the water. There were a about a half dozen other canoes around us but it was very peaceful and sort of otherworldly.